Game Review

Rayman Review

You don’t see a lot of Rayman any more. While technically he has his name on a few prominent Wii minigame compilations, Rayman has since been cast out of his own spinoff series by the Rabbids. But now he’s back, sort of, as Ubisoft has unleashed the limbless freak’s first outing on DSiWare.

It certainly is a pretty affair. Vivid colors, fluid animations and generally cheery Rayman aesthetic are all here and help make this one of the prettiest games on the download service. Character sprites are large and crisp with excellent detail; it’s kind of funny how an originally disc-based game can fit within DSiWare’s size restrictions and still look virtually identical, so hats off to Ubisoft for that. Unfortunately, the decision to keep the same sprites intact has forced a camera concession; not everything fits on the screen like it used to, with the camera zoomed in and having to pan around Rayman depending on which way he’s faced.

The main problem with Rayman DSiWare is that the gameplay feels exceptionally cheap. The camera is a major culprit here; your lay of the land is simply zoomed in too much and asks you to make too many leaps of faith. Boss fights suffer because of this, as sometimes it’s impossible to see where they’re coming from, and in at least one boss battle there doesn’t seem to be any way to escape getting hit – a hallmark of horrible game design. It’s tough enough to navigate enemies while you’re on moving platforms with obstacles swinging all over the place, and not being able to see what’s coming and when is a huge pain. You can use the map to alleviate some of the stage navigation issues, but since the map leaves out enemy placement you’ll still be screwed over somehow.

The added hardware capabilities of the DSi have wiggled their way in with mixed results. Use of the camera is the most obvious addition; you’ll get snapped each and every time you save the game and when starting from a save point, but the photos aren’t stored, which is nice in one way as you won’t have to clear your system memory of pics that you don’t want, but if you do wind up with a good one there’s no way to keep it. You also can’t turn off the shutter sound, which is sure to lead to a lot of perv-accusing looks your way on public transportation. You’ll also likely rack up a lot of annoyed-looking photos of yourself as Rayman bites it for stupid reasons, and since all of the game’s action takes place up top, the touchscreen is relegated to displaying the stage map. You can drag it around with the stylus to see the lay of the land, where the ending is and your own location, but it doesn’t show enemies or other moving obstacles.

Speaking of enemies, the game has an extremely annoying habit of respawning defeated foes once they’re outside the camera range. But wait, that becomes a crapshoot here because the game uses the original camera range as reference, which you can’t see! Prepare to clear a platform of pesky bad guys, only to turn around and have the same jerks be right there again and ready to kick you in the throat like in a certain 1988 Tecmo game. Had the map actually shown you where enemies were then it’d be less of a problem, but you simply don’t know.

But it’s not like the game is devoid of fun, since when it all works it’s possibly the best traditional platformer on DSiWare at the moment (of course, that’s like saying this poop cake tastes better than that poop cake). There’s an in-game achievement checklist to tick off, lives and continues are generous and its overall charm is very appealing. It’s not a particularly long affair, a few hours at most (which may be a blessing in disguise considering its jerk deaths) with the option to even skip a few stages via branching paths.

Conclusion

Had Rayman not been so annoyingly cheap then it would be a highly recommended platformer. Unfortunately, it is annoyingly cheap and should only be traversed by those with either a masochistic streak or diehard Rayman fans. And on a system brimming with quality 2D retail releases it simply can’t compete, even at a lower 800 Point asking price.

Maybe you guys should have gotten someone to review the game that was actually good at platformers. This dsiware version is very good and the control was perfect. Makes me happy I imported a us dsi system. A 5 is far too low for a game this good. I think I'll stick with IGN from now on.

@Kafei2006: So you're saying the camera shows more of the action in this version than in Rayman Advance? That's very important info for me, because Advance is the version I'm used to anyway (though I did first play it on Jaguar). If this version is overall superior to Rayman Advance (and it sounds like it may well be), I'll give it a download.

I must agree that this review sounds overly harsh, but I'd have to play it myself before I could say that for absolute certain. It's a real first for me, thinking IGN's review of something was better than NLife's. Sad thing.

Look this game wasn't regarded that highly when it first came out. I don't know when it became the freaking Mona Lisa, but I suspect some folk have lost perspective around here. Outside of the animation and being one of the better Jaguar debuts I cannot remember anything really positive being said about it.

Rayman is a classic(to me)and one of my favorite games of all time.to see it get a bad score is sad because sometimes when people look at games that got a crappy score they think it is trash and they end up missing out on outstanding gameplay.

@WhoKnew-Wrong, I have played Rayman [PS1 version] before. That might be the only reason I'm not buying this since I have Rayman 1 on my PS3 and I can put it on my PSP. Still, I just don't think a port can be that bad. To me, I'm amazed a high-quality game like Rayman can even fit on the DSiWare service.

I just now created my account (after having been an active visitor to the site), and i was very surprised with giving this game a 5. In it's defense, I always loved playing the original Rayman. It was a challenge, it was fun, it was different, but above all, it was a good game. Is 800 points really too much to ask for? Assuming that this game is better than the GBA remake (which it sounds like from the impressions on Gamefaqs and IGN), i cannot see how this game would not be recommended by any true gamer who owns a dsi. It definitely isn't the Best platformer out there, but i personally think that aside from the "gimmicks" added to the dsi port (the map and camera), it is a game worthy of being supported. To say that it's like "poop" doesn't sound at all respectful... but I highly suggest that anybody who had considered purchasing this game prior to this review read more about it and give the game a shot. You may be surprised at how fun you may have with this game, despite it's challenge (which i do not think is caused by the cons of the reviewer).

@Sean Aaron - "Look this game wasn't regarded that highly when it first came out." What planet are you living on?!?! Rayman is an all-time classic! In fact it was the highest selling PS1 game of all time in Europe! I know sales doesn't always equal quality, but obviously it wouldn't have gotten so popular if it didn't have outstanding qualities that made it stand out from the typical sidescrollers that were commonplace in those days.

Oh, definitely. But if we are evaluating the game based on its original resolution, we may as well take a look at older reviews, since a problem then would still be a problem now...and it's got a solid 75-80% at Gamerankings. I guess we can take a point or two off for the camera snap if it's a big problem.

Look! this is actually more based off the gba version... Same Thing! SECOND remake of the game! notice how it has similar capabilities? THIS IS A VIRTUAL CONSOLE GAME SOLD INDIVIDUALLY!!! hate if you want, but it is what i love because i owned rayman advanced for gba.... NO GBA!!! VC = Rayman and Oscar in toyland are WEIRD VCs....

@accc: I'm talking about the fact that when it was released the major complaints were precisely the complaints here (well, other than the camera): difficulty that was too high and having to grab every last item -- which, in other cookie-cutter platform games, would have been bonus collectables. Now you can argue that maybe a platforming lover would have been a better choice of reviewer because they would have scored the game higher, but don't tell me this game got glowing reviews 15 years ago, because that's simply not true.

I was seriously considering getting this game but now I think I'll hold off. I am very surprised by the score for this game. I really thought that it would have been one of the better games available on the DSiWare service. Well, I'm glad that Castle of Magic turned out to be good at least. I guess I will be downloading this game onto my PS3 instead. Thank you for your review Panda, you saved me some valuable points!

omg i cant stand it... ive never played this game but ign once made my puppy come back to life and they liked it so i would score it 11 !!!!

P.S. Seriously, though, I thoroughly support Panda's choice of a low score if the game is indeed flawed and doesn't live up to today's standards, regardless of what our grandparents said in their reviews.

Hi, Daemon. I could support the low score if I felt the game truely deserved it. Fact is, I just don't believe it does. It certainly doesn't deserve a 9 or 10, but a 5 just overstates the issues, IMO. But enough talk about scores...what REALLY matters is the TEXT of the review...which IMO ALSO overstated the issues, leaving one to believe there is little or no fun to be had with the game. This is not necessarily so.

Hey Daemon, that's a real scorcher of a first post! Be careful you don't tread on anyone's toes, though

As for the game itself, if I were playing a Mario game on a small screen, went left to run up for a jump and the enemy I'd just killed had respawned... well, I wouldn't be too happy. Clearly this isn't one of the better Rayman ports but that doesn't mean the original game wasn't great - look at the Sonic the Hedgehog GBA translation! It happens, sadly.

When me and my brother were little, we loved this game and all its sequels. I don't believe this game deserves to have below a 7. Rayman is just one of those games you have to know somethin' about in order to appreciate its full glory.

First off, you oviously haven't played this game enough. The following sentence proves this: "It’s not a particularly long affair, a few hours at most (which may be a blessing in disguise considering its jerk deaths) with the option to even skip a few stages via branching paths.".

1. You estimate the games length based on the percentage on your save file after x hours, rather then by playing through the game.2. You're wrong about the branching paths. You have to play all the levels to get necessary power-ups. This also tells me that you haven't reached the end of any path, thus making it impossible for you to have fought any but the two first bosses!3. To actually meet the final boss, one has to gather allt the pink blobs on every level. You weren't aware of this either.

Another sentence that made me angry:

"Boss fights suffer because of this, as sometimes it’s impossible to see where they’re coming from, and in at least one boss battle there doesn’t seem to be any way to escape getting hit – a hallmark of horrible game design."

I'm pretty confident you're talking about the boss in the music world and I'm pretty sure you're talking about the attack where he throws bombs at you, that explodes into music notes. I've played this boss and i can assure you, that it won't be easier with a few extra pixels. And it's not impossible to dodge the bombs, you're just no precise enough.

It's embrassing how you blame the screen resolution for your difficulties. Doesn't seem like you've understood it, but the reason for you dying is actually because this is a pretty hard game.

It can't be worse than oscar in toyland can it? and other then that there are no other platformers so I think the score gives the wrong impression escpecially because I played the ps1 version and loved it and the issues in the review seem to be nitpicking

And yea, a verbal brawl between reviewer and commenter is always cool. Skrubber raises some interesting questions. I know reviewers don't always finish games, but it doesn't sound like you even came close.

I've got to say, having downloaded this edition of Rayman, it did not deserve the score it got, especially in light of the other DSiWare platformers. One of the rare times I have disagreed with Nintendo Life (Pop+ Solo was the other time).

I completely agree with Skrubber and others here...this did NOT deserve a 5/10! This game is a very fun and enjoyable...yet hard at times...port of the game! My little sister, who was an addict of Rayman on the PS1, just loves this port and will barely let me have my DSi back! And from the couple hours I've put into it so far, I can tell you...you are way harsh on the score my friend! Rayman DSi deserves no less that a 8/10!

I believe the score of completely unjustified and it seems the review was written by someone who either doesn’t like platformers or Rayman…

10-15 years ago I had this game on PC and loved it and in my family it wasn’t just me. Other than me my sister played it, my father and even my grandfather, it’s just this great. I played it for months but still, I never got to the end-boss (Mr. Dark?).

The game starts of easy and gradually gets more difficult without some steep learning curves, yet being fairly challenging at later stages (well, since I never beat the game I can’t comment on everything). At first you can just jump and walk but quickly you gain more abilities, like punching, holding onto ledges, grabbing stuff and more.

So, what are the changes from the old PC version (and probably other versions too)? Well, the smaller view was already mentioned but I think if you weren’t comparing screenshots, you wouldn’t notice it (I certainly didn’t) except maybe in the boss fights. The picture that gets taken when you get to a checkpoint is just a small feature and probably the only way to implement the camera and call it DSiWare…nothing major but alright. I don’t really care that much for the achievement list, since I just want to be able to finish the game for the first time. One major change is with your life. You get much more extra lives and HP. I think it’s about double from the version I know. Right now I have completed the game 52% (playing it the first time on the console) and rarely visited a level twice (have yet to go back and collect all the cages) but I still have around 30 lives, way more than I used to get. Also your HP are doubled. Except having 3 HP (normal) and 5 HP with the red Power Up, you have 6 HP (normal) and 10 HP (red Power UP) what makes many things a lot easier. Oh and when you already finished a stage and revisit it, you can quick switch through the individual levels by pressing Select but I just found that out a couple of minutes ago myself :>

So far I have just found one “bad” thing about this port: the controls! They aren’t as good as on the PC, especially punching. When I try to punch a bouncing fruit (or rubber ball in later levels) and stand really close to it, sometimes it doesn’t move when I hit it or when I try to grab onto one of these pink flying O’s (to swing around), it sometimes releases immediately (luckily I haven’t died because of that, yet…). It’s as if the DSi registers pressing Punching twice or something like that. Also the fact that you can’t change the button assignments is a bit annoying but you’ll probably get used to it (especially if you’re new to this game).

The thing about the respawning enemies is not a bad thing or design fault in my opinion. I don’t remember any stage where you HAD to go back the way you came from to finish the level and suddenly get surprised by respawning enemies, hell, in later stages the main problems aren’t even enemies (there are almost none) but trying to navigate through spikes, pencils, pits and sunflowers like that…I can only imagine this happening when you try to get some power up or some cage and missed the first time or something like that but even then you don’t just turn around an BAM! all the enemies are back. I still think it’s not as difficult as the version I’m used to from the PC. The map could make it a bit easier to find the cages but so far I haven’t used it much.

I have to confirm Skrubbers comment, that you have to complete every stage and free all the pink things from the cages to be able to get to the final boss (which, as I said, I was never able to do). But that was on the PC, maybe they also changed this and made it easier but I doubt it (still haven’t finished the fourth world).

As a conclusion: the port itself gets a score of 9, since the only thing that bothered me were the inferior controls. The game by itself gets an 8 (probably a 9 if I could FINALLY BEAT THIS FALALALALA THING!)

(This is the first "review" about a game I ever wrote and English isn't my first language, so please be nice :> )

Edit: Alright, I just beat the game! They definitely made it easier which isn't a bad thing, though if the original version wasn't hard enough for you, then you can ignore this game. Playtime for me was around 12-15 hours but I still remembered the placement of many cages, so if you're completely new to the game you could add a couple of hours.

I have to disagree with this review. I was a bit skeptical about buying the game after reading it since I loved the PS1 game but this review made it sound like they had crapped all over it. However I had some points left over and decided to go for it and im glad I did. Ive been playing it non stop and all the issues you have pointed out have not affected me. The zoomed in camera doesnt take away from the experience at all too me. There is plenty of room to see and the map at the bottem is actually helpful. Enemies respawing isnt an issue for me either. Other games have done that (megaman for example) and its accepted there. Why not here? On top of that the game has been made far easier. I struggled making my way to the Third to last world (Picture City) back on the PS1. Here ive made it to the caves in a couple of days, havent used 1 continue and still have 21 lives to spare. And ive also got a ton of cages in the process which again I couldnt do on PS1. I really think people should just give the game a try. No offence to the reviewer but I think that people should try it themselves instead of trusting the review.

Rayman was awarded both "Best Music in a CD-ROM Game" and "Best Animation" in Electronic Gaming Monthly's 1995 Video Game Awards. The game sold 900,000 copies in two years. It is also the best selling PlayStation game of all time in the United Kingdom, beating titles like Gran Turismo and Tomb Raider 2, with around 5 million copies sold.

You speak of reviewers reiterating (or possibly preiterating when you think about it) the same faults that this review points out.. But that was only the case with SOME reviewers for SOME magazines.. I specifically recall GamePro giving Rayman a great review.

I hate the original Rayman game; I mean, I'll admit it's well made. But like most western platformers (see also: Earthworm Jim) the art is a problem. There's not a clear distinction between background and foreground objects, so it's hard to tell what Rayman will connect with. This affects precision jumps and grabbing onto ledges.Worse than that though, the game is just sluggish. He doesn't run, which makes things really slow paced - except for the levels in the music levels where you slide around everywhere. Rayman 2 is excellent though - one of the best games ever made. The original though? Totally not. A gorgeous, but very unfun, game - as long as you're being really honest about things here.

I'd give it an 8/10, hands down. While the original version (for me, the PS1) was significantly more difficult than this one, the DSiWare version still pertains to it's astounding gameplay feats and awes. I have to be honest, but I am a sucker for the music in this game, especially Mr. Dark's theme song (which I managed to put onto my DSi's SD card), it's just so ingenious. What I dislike for the DSiWare version is that some of that great music has either been removed, or a particular track is used more than once for levels that don't even fit the particular track (for example, the rising water level in Dream Forest's original track is an ominous and ambient score, whereas this version has the happy and cheerful music of that of the very first level's music. Yeah, I know.)

Yeah, I hate the camera feature, too. It's either unessecary, or unessecarily loud. Every time I go to a checkpoint, and the photographer takes my picture, in say, a situation where I'm surrounded by a bunch of people I don't know or if I'm in a place that's dead quiet, I would have to supress the camera sound from the speakers with my fingers every time, or just close the DSi and putting it under something, like a pillow. JUST SHUT UP, WILL YOU?!?

Great game on the Sega Saturn for me, back then it was amazing both visually and audio (thanks to the new CD technology). I'm surprised how wide opinions vary on here. I always thought the general concensus was Rayman 1 great 2D side scroller, Rayman 2 great 3d game for its time....everything else until Ravid Rabbids is mostly forgotten. That said I don't have this version, don't need it, I still have the saturn and I still love this game like I did 15 years ago.

5 is right for this version of the game. The original console versions deserve a 7 or 8 maybe, but on the GBA/DSi, the camera is zoomed in way too much leading to leaps of faith, constantly respawning enemies and enemies lurking just off screen to harm you (that you would've been easily able to spot on the older versions). It's got impressive graphics and sound, I'll give it that, and all the levels are there, but people shouldn't let their love for the original game cloud their judgement here, it's a VERY flawed port. Oh, and to cap it all off, even being familiar with the original game doesn't help as they've altered the placement of quite a few of the Electoon cages in this port, for some odd reason.

I really WANT to like this game, but I can't play it without someone accusing me of taking pictures of myself, and then I have to explain it all to them... I should have gotten the GBC version instead.